Set in the neurosurgical ward of Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet, the city and country's main hospital, nicknamed "Riget", "Riget" means "the realm" or "the kingdom" and leads one to think of "dødsriget", the realm of the dead.
40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes. The results run the gamut from Zhang Yimou's convention-thwarting joke to David Lynch's bizarre miniature epic.
Françoise Barnier, the film's heroine, is a mother. One day, she stole something. She was in dire straits but no more so than usual. She was not in debt. She had always refused the degradation of excessive debt and charities, attempting to live in line with the rules laid down by society and the law. We follow her journey through the judicial institution. Here, two ideas of justice and law collide.